china bambina is now in first grade and attending local Chinese school. I read to her every night and need some English language book recommendations.
junie B first grader was a hit. however, it’s written in a ‘natural’ style rather than being grammatically correct.
want something fun, modern and grammatically correct. China Bambina loves art, so bonus points there. I want to avoid anything archaic like Anne of Green Gable
or Lityle House. we’re just trying to keep her English progressing and want to learn current American English.
Oh, and the Littles books by John Peterson. About tiny people (with tails) and their adventures. Cute, though not great literature–they’re chapter books.
My son is six, in 1st grade, and we’ve done really well with most of Roald Dahl’s stories, some classics like The Wizard of Oz, Dr Dolittle, Peter Pan, The Railway Children, Pippi Longstocking, Mr Potter’s Penguins, Carbonel and The Kingdom of Carbonel, A Bear Called Paddington, and more.
Would people recommend reading the Narnia and Harry Potter books to a six-year old, or perhaps wait a year or two?
dangermom - Edward Eager - I need to get hold of those - I really loved them!
Has your bambina begun to read? I’ve written a manuscript for early readers (who can sound out a few letters but aren’t quite up to reading words.) If you get me some way to get you the pages, I’ll send you a sample. My kids loved it when they around 5 or 6.
Narnia is fine, as long as the kid has a bit of tolerance for scary monsters–the first book has a whole list of hags, ghouls, minotaurs, and whatnot. I have not let my 6yo see the movie, but she reads the book.
I have not let my 6yo have Harry Potter at all, because while the first book is only somewhat scary, they get progressively darker, and I don’t want to have to say that she can read the first book, but not the others, when they are right there looking tempting. It really kind of annoys me that the entire series is not OK for younger kids when the first ones are, and they’re so popular with the 7-8yo set. I understand why she’s doing it, but grrr. Anyway there is lots of wonderful stuff out there without HP, so we can wait for awhile.
thanks for the suggestions. i’ll be checking these out in a month whenni’m in the US.
trying to avoid archaic language or fantasy type. china bamb9na is working real hard to learn to read and write chinese. Also Mandarin is definitely her primary language, so I want the limited English language stories to be fun and most useful for her daily conversation.